Chandigarh, May 17
A huge rush of applicants was witnessed at the Government College of Education, Sector 20, here today on the last date of submitting application forms for the B.Ed entrance test scheduled for June 6.

Of the over 9,000 application forms sold, around 6,500 applications had been received at the Government College of Education, Sector 20, and the Dev Samaj College of Education, Sector 36. The entrance test would be held for 540 seats in three colleges.

The Chandigarh Administration had decided to conduct the entrance test for admission to B.Ed course in three city education colleges from this year. The entrance test would be conducted to fill seats in the Government College of Education, Sector 20, the Dev Samaj College of Education, Sector 36, and Maharishi Yoga College. The result would be declared on June 14 and counselling would be held on July 22, said Ms S.Tangri, Principal of the Government College of Education, Sector 20.

An officer of the Chandigarh Administration said the decision to conduct the test had been taken following complaints that the criteria of admission from the UT quota was not being followed. The Administration had reduced the UT quota of seats from 85 per cent to 60 per cent. The remaining 40 per cent seats had been reserved for outstation candidates. This had been done on demand of Principals, who had been stating that they had to admit low-ranked UT students as compared to candidates with higher percentage from outside.

Mohali, May 17
Three students of Paragon Senior Secondary School, Phase X, and five students of Gem Public School, Phase 3BII, have made it to the Punjab School Education Board merit list of the Class VIII examination.

While Jasmandeep of Paragon School is first in Mohali and second in Ropar district, Akhil Tewari of the same school is second in Mohali and sixth in the district. Parminder Singh of Gem Public School is third in Mohali and seventh in the district.

Manpreet Singh of Paragon School and Lavneet Kaur, Jagjit Kaur Bhambra, Gurdeep Kaur and Alka Chaudhry of Gem Public School also feature in the merit list. Board results can be accessed through mobile service providers as SMS messages. Customers can avail themselves of this service for Class X and Class XII results when these are declared. The results on SMS will contain detailed subject-wise marks obtained.

Chandigarh, May 17
The Public Welfare Association (PWA), in association with MCM DAV College, Sector 36, and Department of Continuing Education, Panjab University, organised a seminar on “Youth for nation building” at Maloya village today.

Students, teachers, social workers and volunteers of various NGOs took part in the seminar. The speakers stressed the need for using youth power for nation-building and not for achieving political ends by the vested interest.

Dr C.L. Narang from the Department of Continuing Education, Panjab University, while inaugurating the seminar, said it was unfortunate that the youth power in India was not being harnessed for creative purposes.

“It has been a tragedy with our political system that the unemployed youth is exploited to achieve political ends. Youth is the future of our country. They should not be provoked in the name of religion, region or language. Our leaders should not create barriers to divide the youth power.

Unemployed youth should be given technical training so that they may generate some income for a bright future. Commercialisation of education should be minimised,” he said. Dr Puneet Bedi, Principal, MCM DAV College, in her message said media should play a constructive role in channeling the energy of the youth. She said some television channels were showing excessive violence in the name of modernity and young minds were being misled. “There is a need for moral education. Our college has decided to start a moral value unit from this session,” she stated.

The participants emphasised the need for involving the youth in policy-making, especially in awareness programmes. They opined that social change was not possible without the participation of the youth and laid stress on technical education to empower youth and generate employment.

Chandigarh, May 17
A two-day orientation course on stress management for students of Class XII and teachers of Government Model Senior Secondary School, Sector 16, was organised by the Centre for Adult and Continuing Education and Extension (CACEE), Panjab University, here today.

Ms Renu Gandhi, programme coordinator of the centre, said the main objective of the course was management stress being faced by adolescents today. She said social interaction, social cohesiveness, meditation, self-control and self-discipline helped in managing stress.

Dr Sherry Sabharwal, Reader, Department of Sociology, PU, explained the various dimensions of stress in terms of anxiety, inner tensions, expectations from our-self and ego clash. She said youngsters should develop an extrovert behaviour in society so that they were able to discuss stress and problems with fellow beings. She explained, “We should not develop A type of personality, which is introvert, and always in a hurry to do things in a perfect way. The effort should be to develop B type of personality, which is healthy in nature.”

Dr Avinish Jolly, coordinator, Servant of People Society, Lajpat Rai Bhavan, Chandigarh, mentioned different types of physical, mental and social stress among the students.

He outlined the need for a phased strategy to alleviate stress among students. “Idealism, right type of attitudes, strengthening of the Indian culture system and traditional values help them to release stress,” he said.

He said at the adolescent stage, the main problem was that of time management and lack of hard work, leading to stressful lives.

The second phase, he said, was to do physical exercises, brisk walk and meditation, which could lead to overall growth and relieving of stress.

Result declared: Panjab University has declared the result of BBA-II examinations held in April, 2004. The result gazettes will be available in the New Enquiry Office of the university on all working days from 10 am to 4 pm. The result will also be available on the university website, www:puchd.ac.in, from 10 am tomorrow onwards. No telephonic enquiry about the result will be entertained.

Chandigarh, May 17
Pathways World School, a residential school at Gurgaon, plans to expand its operations across the country.

Addressing a press conference here, Mr Prabhat Jain, director of the school, said the curriculum of the International Baccalaureate was being followed. The school supported the International General Certificate of Secondary Education, Cambridge, England, he added.

The first academic session of the school began in 2003. He said the school authorities had visited the city to create awareness about the school among prospective students and parents in the region. He maintained that a lot of students from Punjab, Haryana and towns in the North had been enrolled at the school.

He claimed that the school promoted internationalism alongside traditional Indian values. The school authorities believed in theory of multiple intelligence and student-centered learning. The school had facilities matching any international school, he stated.

CATCH your favourite stars in different moods — having a good laugh with their co-stars or puffing a cigarette in between shots or signing their contracts with their producers. Picking up bits and pieces from the galaxy of Bollywood stars, freelance photographer Raj Tilak Chawla has weaved a kaleidoscopic world of the dream makers — ranging from yesteryear evergreen hero Dev Anand to today’s teenage hearthrob Hrithik Roshan, from Rekha to Preity Zinta.

“These are the portraits of various stars collected in the past 20 years of my professional career as a freelance film photographer,” says Chawla, the man from Kapurthala who made it big in the tinsel town. Chawla is exhibiting his creations at IndusInd Art Gallery in sector 8.

A self-taught photographer, Chawla got inspired to become a film photographer when his portraits of Dilip Kumar, Jackie Shroff and Anil kapoor got widely appreciated by the unit of “Karma”— yesteryear’s Bollywood blockbuster.

“I went to Kashmir in 1984 when the unit of Karma and Elan-e-Zung was shooting various locales in the valley. I shot a few pictures and got inspired by the units to try out my luck in the industry,” he says. There was no looking back after that. In 1997 he was awarded with the “Film Gaurav” award for best photography.

Ask him about the most photogenic face he has captured in his camera till date, and his face lights up. “Raveena is the most photogentic face in the industry, Capture her from any angle and she will look stunning. She is the one person who gives her best shot into everything she does — even something as mundane as getting a still done,” he says. Other than Raveena, Chawla liked working with Jaya Pradha, Madhuri Dixit and late heroine Divya Bharati.

What is the ratio between creativity of a photographer and the facial structure of a person that attributes towards the success of a portrait? “Creativity is important, not just the technical knowhow of your camera but also studying your subject well,” says Chawla. And it takes years of experience to catch the person in his best angle and also to make him or her tick so that the person lits up and transpire that radiance into the film, he adds.
OC

It is a story on the dark side of people and their deep dark secrets that lurk just beneath the surface, always ready to come out when under pressure. That is what Rahul da Cunha’s play “Pune Highway” has for you. This much-acclaimed writer-director trays grim reality with his five characters and gives you a great deal of comedy as the script unfolds into an exciting and dramatic murder mystery.

A “Rage” production presented by the Durga Das Foundation in collaboration with The Tribune and Spice Telecom, the story takes you to a dingy room in a seedy hotel room just off the Bombay-Pune highway, a shelter for three young men who are on the run. From this, it is a roller-coaster ride for the audience too, because you do not know what is going to hit you next — nail-biting suspense, mudslinging or unadulterated comedy.

Drama unfolds with barbed remarks on each other as three friends Pramod, Vishno and Nick tries to come to terms with the murder of their friend. More twists come from a casual fling by one of them and again from a blackmailing attempt by a boy at the hotel.

How they cope with pressure is the crux of the play and what makes the play gripping is their separate ways of doing it. Vishno remarks aptly, “You lie, Nick stammers and I joke when we buckle under pressure.” The minutest details on the sets and realistic acting by the cast has made the play something worth seeing, which otherwise may have easily been termed as the stage version of a run-of-the-mill kind of Bollywood thriller.

Dialogue is another strong point of the play. Comedy churns out of tension, characters are assassinated with friendliness and ease, not just giving an insight into the person under attack, but also into the person who is doing it, by the degree of venom and pettiness. Even the set using bare minimum furniture and the background music gives a realistic touch to the show, helping one to flow with the story. The cast includes Bugs Bhargava Krishna as Nick, Rehan Engineer as Vishno, Rajit Kapoor as Pramod, Yamini Namjoshi as Mona and Shankar Sachdeva as
Sakharam.

Blondes are in and so are deep frings and spikes, if you go by the fashion statement made by Meloary Dixon, the Creative Training manager of Loreal, India, who demonstrated the latest in hairstyling at Tress Lounge in Sector 8, here on Monday.

The occasion was the first anniversary of Tress Lounge and complementing the festive mood, models sashayed down the hall to exhibit what is the latest in the hair world — mostly middle length cuts in disconnected waves giving a bountiful look to the wearer.

“People of this region prefers middle length hairstyles and so I have shown my creations accordingly,” says Meloary. This creative manager of Loreal, India, picks up international trends and improvises them to suit the face cut and skin colour.

Here are a few tips from the fashion guru:

If you are colouring your hair, go for a shade which is two levels lighter then your natural colour, there should not be too much of contrast between the eye brows and hair colour, otherwise you will end up looking stupid; though blonde shades are in, reds will never go out of fashion in India;

There is no hard and fast rule about shampooing your hair. Do it whenever you feel the need. OC

Collection and preservation of antiquities, old lithographs, miniatures paintings, oil paintings and handwritten manuscripts have become a passion for Mr Navjot Pal Singh Randhawa, Assistant Commissioner to the DC, Fatehgarh Sahib.

A large portion of his collections include handwritten copies of the Geeta, Ramayana, Vichar Sagar, Japji Sahib, Sukhmani Sahib, Bai Bara, Bhagat Bani, Kabir Bani, Farid Bani, Dhaji Bani, Sur Dass Bani, Guru Sobha Granth, the life history of Guru Arjun Dev and Guru Granth Sahib. Handwritten books on HIKMAT (medicine) are also part of his collection.

Besides, various manuscripts written in Punjabi, dating back to 17th century and one of the few surviving examples of the earliest Punjabi scripts, make his collection rare.

According to Mr Randhawa, a large portion of his collection was given to him by his grandfather and he went on to develop the interest.

He said a major portion of his salary goes towards buying artifacts and then restoring these as per archeological methods.

His office is decorated with various antique and rare paintings. Recently, he joined hands with the Punjab Virasat Charitable Trust, in preserving the “Haveli of Diwan Todar Mal Jain”, who bought land for the cremation of Sahibzadas of Guru Gobind Singh by offering gold coins.

Mr Randhawa had held an exhibition at the Patiala Heritage Festival in February, last year. He termed his passion for collecting artifacts as: “Yeh khalal hai, janoon hai, fitoor hai dimag ka”.
OC

This spring summer 2004 collection of Monte Carlo has hand-painted Irish linen shirts — absolutely cool that makes one feel light and airy.The colours used in them bring cleanliness to any stylish man’s ensemble and are made from vegetable dyes which are environment and skin-friendly. The collection is all about light pinks, salmon, pale yellow, mauve, mint greens and has paint strokes going vertical and diagonally .

Apart from Irish linen shirts, Monte Carlo has also introduced semi-formal yarn-dyed multicolour checks and stripes in structured dobbies comprising pinstripes, windowpanes. Shirts made fom 100 per cent combed cotton have also been designed in styles of button-down and straight collars to cut away collars. A perfect shirt to be noticed at the office or after work bar.

Available in full sleeves and half sleeves, the range starts from Rs 645 and goes up to Rs 1,150.

Dove Test

Hindustan Lever Limited’s premium cleansing bar Dove has been tested and found to be milder than 25 leading soaps of the Indian soap market. Hindustan Lever’s research centre has established this through proven scientific procedures mandated by the Bureau of Indian Standards such as the pH test and patch test.

The skin’s natural pH is slightly acidic 5.5-6. Ordinary soaps tend to be alkaline, with pH higher than 9. Dove is formulated to be pH neutral (pH between 6.5 and 7.5) and to be mild on skin.This makes is suitable for all skin types for all seasons.

To make Dove accessible to a larger group of Indian women, Dove has reduced its price to Rs 25 for 75 g bar.

Footwear

TFS, one of the leading footwear brands and is all set to create ripples in the fashion footwear market with the launch of its spring/summer collection 2004.
Consisting of exquisite styles in shoes and sandals with an urban, functional and trendy feel, TFS’s latest
collection sets a trend that is much ahead of the market and makes it stand apart from others.

TFS spring summer collection 2004 is a premium offering — a top of the line product with its elegant, scientific designed foot bed, skin-friendly leather base. The designs represent a perfect blend of European fashion and Italian design, exuding classic elegance and sheer sophistication.

The collection is available in more than 65 styles and in different colour combinations like camel, beige, olive, choco brown and variation of tan’s and greys with a tinge of denim. The price range between Rs 896 and Rs 1999.
TNS